Posted By:
Carlos Alcazar"Someone could ask for NO QUALIFIERS but does that give the grading service the right to abandon their posted grading criteria?"
Fred,
What you say is true, but I think that the notion behind the qualifiers is that the card exhibits all the signs of the higher grade given with the exception of centering in the case of the OC qualifier.
When somebody asks for No Qualifiers it pretty much automatically drops the grade down to take the centering, staining, or whatever the case may be into account. It goes from being a card that "is nice enough to be grade x, except for centering, etc" to instead being a lower grade without a qualifier to take the whole into account.
This is why I don't think they abandon their posted grading criteria necessarily.
The market also takes this into account. I don't purchase much graded, vintage or otherwise, but in more modern cards even a PSA 9 with an OC qualifier will not be treated the same as an 9 without one, and in some cases an 8 with no qualifier can sell for more than an a qualified 9.
It should also be noted that PSA does include an exception (found on the PSA FAQ):
"Also, while you may request no qualifiers on your submission, it is up to the discretion of our graders to determine if the qualifier can be removed."
So even the request doesn't automatically make it happen, just when the graders decide it's warranted.